This £12 beauty tool is a lockdown essential
So much attention has been paid to hairdressers – rightly so, who doesn’t miss theirs? – and our uncoloured roots, that those other follicles we lovingly curl, volumise and condition, have gone untalked about.
Quietly though, the humble eyelash curler has emerged as a beauty hero of lockdown. As anyone with straight lashes knows, curling them makes a significant difference to how wide awake and alert you look. This is useful intel at the best of times, but when most of your appearances are on a computer screen, tired, droopy eyes are magnified, which is doubly cruel when you consider how tired and droopy staring at a screen all day long makes us.
I usually get my lashes “lifted” in a salon every two months or so. It’s probably the most boring of all my grooming chores – takes an hour, involves chemicals, but what can you do if you have donkey-straight lashes, and the transformation is so dramatic?
You can only reach for your eyelash curler, which you’ve probably mislaid or never had in the first place. Prices for eyelash curlers range from £2 to around £30, so this is not a major outlay. There are fancy rose-gold versions if that’s your bag, and heated ones (don’t bother – they’ve never worked for me).
The Eyeko blue ones (£12, eyeko.co. uk) do the job beautifully – and they’re easy to find in your bathroom cabinet. If we’re talking eyelash curler specs – and we should – they have the right amount of cushion, curve and are easy to grip. Hold your lashes in them for 15-45 seconds and release. Don’t make the mistake of squeezing too hard – I did once and sliced my lashes off almost to the roots. Do condition your lashes regularly with a drop or two of castor oil.
If we’re really going to be wearing masks, eyes will become even more of a focal point and a key communication tool. Lipstick sales have already taken an uncharacteristic dip as we focus on skincare and eye products. Another recommendation to (subtly) enhance
your eyes is the By.me range of eye-shadows launched just before Christmas by former Vogue art director Robin Derrick and Max Leykind, who also founded Eyeko. There’s not room here to delve into their website, Mybeautybrand.com. Suffice to say, it could become the millennial answer to Avon, where anyone can get involved with selling its products, without the pyramid business model. It’s cruelty free, reasonably priced and the pigments of the eyeshadows, which can be worn wet or dry and built up, are beautifully intense yet sheer.
I love Jacqueline Gold 602, which I use as a highlighter on my temples as well as eyes – it gives a lovely sheen which works as well in real life as on video. The Jemima Foil Blue 203 eyeshadow is perfect for Zoom parties and Astrid Pearl Lilac 253 is lovely for day, from £15 from mybeautybrand.com.
The lockdown conference call has also demonstrated that whatever else gives, appearance wise, your brows shouldn’t. Don’t worry about stray hairs, no one sees those through the pixelations. But they will notice a well defined arch. I left my brow tint in the office, so I’ve been using my Color Wow root touch-up (£28.50, colorwowhair.com). Like so many things we’ve had to experiment with lately, it does the job brilliantly.